Biography of Matthew Denn

Lieutenant Governor Matt Denn took office in January 2009, and has worked as an advocate for Delaware’s children and a proponent of small businesses.

Lieutenant Governor Denn has helped improve Delaware’s public schools by leading efforts to improve recruitment of outstanding new school teachers, encourage more efficient spending of tax dollars by school districts, provide better services to schoolchildren with disabilities, and expand parental involvement in schools. Lieutenant Governor Denn has also led efforts to create one of the nation’s most comprehensive developmental screening programs for infants and toddlers, create a new health insurance program for children of low income working parents, and expand the number of families willing to care for children in foster care. Lieutenant Governor Denn worked closely with the Governor on the Governor’s landmark early childhood education program, and has been part of the Governor’s financial team, helping balance four state budgets during the worst recession in almost a century.

As the state's elected Insurance Commissioner from 2005 to 2009, Lieutenant Governor Denn led the charge to pass laws restricting credit scoring and unfair cancellation of homeowners insurance, and fought to limit increases in Delawareans’ insurance rates. During his term, workers compensation insurance rates were cut by 45 percent, saving tens of millions of dollars for Delaware businesses. Additionally, Lieutenant Governor Denn personally took on the cases of hundreds of Delawareans who were being treated unfairly by their insurance companies.

Lieutenant Governor Denn grew up in New Castle County, the son of Morton and Marilyn Denn, attending Yorklyn Elementary and H.B. du Pont Middle School before his family moved to California. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and Yale Law School.

Lieutenant Governor Denn returned to Delaware after Yale and sought out Delaware Volunteer Legal Services for his first job, providing free legal advice and representation to people who couldn't afford it. In 1998, after he had entered private legal practice, Lieutenant Governor Denn was asked by then-Governor Tom Carper to chair a commission charged with fixing state government's child protection system after a series of tragic child deaths.

Lieutenant Governor Denn and his wife Michele live near Newark with their 8-year-old twins Adam and Zach and their pug Lenny.